Core Principles and Framework of Labor Law

1. Concept of Labor Law

Employment Law is an area of Labor Law that covers all aspects of employer-employee relations, excluding the negotiation process and collective bargaining. It is established to protect the rights of employees.

Individual Labor Law studies the employer, the employee, their basic institutions, and the individual employment relationship.

Collective Labor Law concerns the legal regulation of trade unions, employers’ associations, workforce representatives, collective bargaining, representation on public bodies, workers’ participation, and industrial disputes.

Labor Law includes three blocks of provisions:

• Governing the labor market and placement in employment
• State intervention in industrial relations
• Legal procedures for labor cases

Social Security is an independent branch. Social Security Law refers to persons who work on another’s account and maintains principles, concepts, and institutions developed by Labor Law.

2. Scope of Labor Law

• To protect the rights of workers as the weakest party in the contract of employment.
• To confirm the economic and social legitimacy of the subjects of relations.
• To establish a balance between the interests of these subjects and those of the rest of the community.

The right to collective bargaining and the right to strike did not appear in Spanish legislation until the Constitution of 1978.

There are notable tendencies in the development of Employment Law: the perception that it consists largely of state-issued legal rules and the adoption of free-market economics that preached a deregulatory agenda and challenged trade unions.

3. Parties in the Employment Relationship

An employment relationship is the willing rendering of services by an individual (employee) for consideration and benefits, within an organization, and under the direction of another individual (employer).

In determining if an individual is an employee, we must consider:

• The nature of compensation paid
• Provision for employee benefits
• If the hired party is in business
• Tax treatment of the hired party
• Source of the equipment used
• Location of the work

3.1 Employee Definition

Employees are individuals whose employment relationship is under the organization and control of the employer, where the risks and benefits of the business activity are assumed by the employer. Employees are the only working group protected by the Workers’ Statute.